Our new short courses are a great way to learn about using different kinds of sources for researching and writing history. Whether you're researching one place, or something broader, this is the ideal introduction to using the built environment in history!

Final day for bookings for my Historic Maps course next week! We'll explore the history of surveying and cartography, colonial map making and tithe maps. We'll also get hands on with physical and digital historic map collections!

What’s this? A second new book in two days? Towcester Hundred is the eighth VCH volume for Northamptonshire, including the town of Towcester and its rural neighbours. Available soon from @boydellandbrewer.bsky.social and @ihrlibrary.bsky.social. #Skystorians #LocalHistory

It really shouldn't be so difficult to change a battery in a toothbrush! When this Oral B brush stopped holding charge, I was determined not to give in to planned obsolescence. Took a £5 NiMH battery, and re-soldering 9 joints - clearly designed deliberately to discourage you from sustainability!

Astonishing. The development of ship design and capacity is something our analysis of London's medieval customs accounts may illuminate. @justincolson.bsky.social @ebenbow.bsky.social @histgrove.bsky.social

Did medieval people buy each other Christmas gifts? New Year's Day was the main gifting day, but little is known about everyday people's present giving. Our project on London's customs records has uncovered a wealth of affordable items imported around this time: gloves and hats to toys and rattles🧵

Don't steal pies this Christmas.

We’ll be running our introduction to manuscript studies again in June 2026. There’s an early bird discount if you book this month, but if students are interested please encourage them to book early as this course has limited places 👇 📚📖✏️💻 ies.sas.ac.uk/study-traini...

Can’t get to London for summer school? In Jan we are running online courses. Forget the cold by exploring medieval manuscripts. Classes are small so book now! 👇 @ies-sas.bsky.social @warburginstitute.bsky.social @senatehouselib.bsky.social @ihr.bsky.social #MedievalSky ies.sas.ac.uk/news-events/...

📣Booking is now open for the London International Palaeography School 2026 📣 We are running five 5-day courses, from practical hands-on 'making medieval manuscripts' to an introduction to Arabic manuscripts - don't miss out! 10% discount if you book before 23 Jan! ies.sas.ac.uk/study-traini...

This is so rarely mentioned, but incredibly important. Universities seem determined to spend virtually unlimited cash with the same few publishing/outsourcing firms, for deeply flawed, frustrating, and atrophied software. Anything to avoid the "risk" of having to manage your own systems, it seems!

'One solution is to move away from costly proprietary software and to invest in our own people to build community-led hardware and infrastructure solutions with open source software.' Some European governments have started to do so already. 3/3

The King has commanded that the Greater London Authority (GLA) shall be allowed to use the coat of arms that once belonged to its predecessor, the GLC. www.ianvisits.co.uk/articles/the...

📢 NEW 'Project Progress Update' Blog Post! 📢 We've recently reached a very significant project milestone, and thought this would be the perfect moment to provide a research update: sites.exeter.ac.uk/materialcult... Featuring @zooniverse.bsky.social news, and a sneak peek at our database! 📜✍️💻

Historians doing place-based and spatial research often want to make use of archaeological work, but it can often feel difficult to find what you want, and difficult to interpret when you do find it. This course is designed to help historians get a foothold in the world of archaeology!

Want to use archaeology in your local history research? In my new @ihr.bsky.social 'Discovery' short course (29 April-1 May 2026) you will learn where to locate and how to use records of surveys, excavations and finds in your area. Plus a visit to the @antiquaries.bsky.social library and...

Interested in old maps? My new @ihr.bsky.social 'Discovery' Short Course will introduce the history of cartography, how to find and work with old maps online, and even how to georeference historical maps! We'll also get hands-on with map collections, plus lecture from @kparkerhistorian.bsky.social

Our IHR Summer Schools have been incredible inclusive events for historians of all kinds - really looking forward to meeting everyone interested in London history this year!

Great programme of spatial history workshops and hackathons during early December!

Happy 75th birthday to @thenacbs.bsky.social! If you are at #NACBS2025 in Montreal, say hello to our Director @clairelanghamer.bsky.social, Senior Lecturer in Urban & Digital History and Deputy Director of @chppc.bsky.social @justincolson.bsky.social, and Institute Manager Conor Wyer.

Book for the Mermaid's Tail tour or Queer Legends workshop, part of #queermaritimes at the National Maritime Museum. Both take place this Saturday, 15 Nov. This is part of the wonderful work of the Queer History Club, which meets at the NMM. #skystorians 🗃️

Join us online on 2 Dec for ‘Old, New, Precarious Data’, the 1st event of the 2025-6 @dh-researchhub.bsky.social seminar series on incompleteness & loss in digital cultural heritage collections. Speakers include @beatricecannelli.bsky.social, @heatherfro.bsky.social, Leontien Talboom & Amelia Acker

Back by popular demand, Introduction to Latin Palaeography will run online in February 2026 #MedievalSky 👇 ies.sas.ac.uk/news-events/...

Join the @ihr.bsky.social Digital History seminar on 4 November (12:00 GMT on Zoom) to celebrate the winning entry for the 2025 Richard Deswarte Prize in Digital History and to learn about gender and lottery rhymes in the medieval/early-modern low countries ihrdighist.blogs.sas.ac.uk/2025/09/tues...

Today La Sagrada Família is having the first part of the crowning cross of the Jesus Tower installed. This will finally take it past Ulm Minster's 161.5 metres (begun 1392, completed with octagon and spire 1885-90) as the tallest church in the world!

(Because this is Bluesky, no doubt people will scold me for using an LLM to do this research on where LLMs go wrong. But if we want to keep LLMs out of classrooms, I firmly believe we need a strong conceptual and empirical of their failure modes. Anyway, spare me.)

Our latest #blog post provides an update from Dr Philip Muijtjens on his research in the #archives of the Venerable English College in Rome, which will eventually be published by the Trust. Read here: yorkisthistorytrust.org/2025/10/30/t... #Medieval #Skystorians #MedievalSky

Now firmly lodged in my ear too ...

Our latest Viewpoint article is out: 'Guilds and Companies in London, 1200–1700: Contexts and Comparisons' by @mpdavies.bsky.social. A 🧵 on the insights provided by this article into the history and historiography of these key metropolitan institutions in the medieval and early modern periods.

I'm speaking (online) on "Deep Mapping in Practice: ‘Layers of London’ and Participatory Experiential Mapping" at the Warsaw Spatial Humanities Seminar next Thursday 6th November. Sign-up here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

The EAUH 2026 Barcelona call for papers has been extended! We've had some great submissions for our panel on pre-modern quaysides and customs records, but have room for some more - please do consider making a proposal!

Great afternoon exploring Deptford Creek courtesy of Tom Chivers and the Thames Festival Trust

At @ihr.bsky.social we can now offer PhD by Publication in History! For those with a substantial body of existing published research (within past 10 years), but without a PhD, should be of particular interest to #heritage professionals and independent scholars!

A sneak peek of what I'll be up to on Sunday October 26: in the studio with the brilliant Cerys Matthews - and a cheesemaker! Tune in and join us! www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Still time to sign up for these fantastic events! @ihr.bsky.social

Volume 52, Issue 4 is now out! Featuring: 📜 Erika Kuijpers, Carolina Lenarduzzi, Judith Pollmann, Theo Dekker and Alie Lassche on local chroniclers in the early modern Low Countries doi.org/10.1017/S096... 🦁 Anton Kotenko on the origins of St Petersburg’s zoo, 1865–1871 doi.org/10.1017/S096...

Who did what in early modern England? New #OpenAccess book, 'The Experience of Work in Early Modern England' by @jwhittle.bsky.social, @markhailwood.bsky.social, @hkrobb.bsky.social & @aucointaylor.bsky.social, based on thousands of #EarlyModern court depositions 🗃️ Read it: doi.org/10.1017/9781...

We're increasing the capacity of our current geotagging project to take on new volunteers! Help us to refine our collection by adding geographic data to historic photos, completed entirely remotely at your own pace. Interested? Get in touch with us at [email protected]

@ihr.bsky.social and @ies-sas.bsky.social are partnering with @thelondonarchives.bsky.social to run a new series of public lectures, featuring the chance to see the original records first hand. First lecture by @patrickwallis.bsky.social on "Apprenticeship and the Rise of London", Weds 15th October!

Working on pre-modern customs records, in any context? We're running a session "Quayside and Custom House: Customs Accounts as a Source for Medieval and Early Modern Urban History" at EAUH 2026 Barcelona. Paper submissions very welcome! www.eauhbarcelona2026.eu/sessions/#se...

Apparently working time is decreed to be over ... But loved hearing @vch-home.bsky.social colleagues celebrating their 250th Big Red Book!

Printed copies of Everlasting Flowers are gorgeous! But the digital version is #openaccess for anyone to read: brill.com/display/titl.... A book presentation takes place at the KB in The Hague on 3 December. You are warmly invited! To register: tickets.kb.nl/nl-NL/Show/D... Please share!

Very much this. The IHR really is open to everyone and this includes our common room and our library as well as our wonderful seminars. All free, all welcome!

The stark, monochrome beauty of an Apple Mac Paris in an alternate 1995. Be sure to visit the arcology on your next visit! 📺: Sim City 2000, Maxis, 1993

The @ihr.bsky.social Late Medieval Seminar series for autumn 2025 is now published. Themes from ladies in waiting to the custom house, and a roundtable on editing sources. All seminars are hybrid (or fully online), also, I'm now one of the convenors! www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

"Not a bug but a feature". Alas naivety about AI seems proportional to seniority in most organisations, not least universities

You mostly all know about this already, but still nice to see an official story - www.northampton.ac.uk/news/when-th...

How widespread were medieval technological objects, and who owned them? Read about where they were found in medieval households in a new DALME feature essay by Dan Smail. dalme.org/features/a-n...

New article, now available to read online: '‘To prevent the great influx of poor people into this parish’: Local Responses to the Rate Problem in the Suburbs of Early Stuart London', by Aaron Columbus: www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1...